Q:
A:
We were shocked and we were horrified by the action taken
at Tianamen Square and the aftermath and we made it
perfectly clear at the time, I wasn't actually in my
position now in the Foreign Office with a responsibility
for Hong Kong so I wasn't as closely involved as my
predecessor, all the Ministers made it clearly that they deplore what happened.
And this still hasn't changed yet?
Of course not.
Q:
A:
Q:
So is it correct to say that the British Government has not forgotten what happened in Tianamen Square?
I hope nobody has forgotten what happened in Tianamen
Square.
But then you said cooperation between China and the United Kingdom is now important.
A: Yes.
Q:
So don't you think these two statements contradict each
other?
A:
Not in the slightest bit. One can make one's views perfectly clear about the situation, you might abhor a situation, you might detest the fundamentals that lay behind a decision that was taken, you can make that perfectly clear to somebody, but then you must carry on talking to them. Of course it is quite easy to carry on talking to somebody but having made your views perfectly clear, with human rights for example, when Tse Sing Pao the Vice-Foreign Minister came over here, I made it perfectly clear that I didn't approve of the human rights situations. I took it up, so did Douglas Hurd, the Secretary of State when he went to Peking, but at the same time there are